Tournament information | |
---|---|
Location | Lauderhill, Florida |
Established | 1945 |
Course(s) | Inverrary Country Club |
Par | 72 |
Tour(s) | PGA Tour |
Format | Stroke play |
Prize fund | US$175,000 |
Month played | March |
Final year | 1976 |
Tournament record score | |
Aggregate | 264 Sam Snead (1946) |
To par | −24 as above |
Final champion | |
Hubert Green | |
Location map | |
Location in the United States Location in Florida |
The Greater Jacksonville Open was a PGA Tour event that was played from 1945 until 1976.
Shortly after World War II, the Jacksonville Open began play as a PGA Tour event in Jacksonville, Florida at the Hyde Park Golf Club until it was discontinued in the mid-1950s. In the mid-1960s, the PGA Tour came to town again. This time the event was initially named the Jacksonville Open again and changed for the 1968 event to the Jacksonville Open Invitational. The name was changed to the Greater Jacksonville Open for the 1969 event.
The Greater Jacksonville Open was discontinued after the 1976 tournament when the PGA Tour decided to relocate The Players Championship to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The PGA Tour had been looking for some time for a permanent home for the marquee event which has professional golf's highest prize fund and is sometimes referred to as the "fifth major". The Players Championship had been played at the Atlanta Country Club in Marietta, Georgia in 1974, the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth in 1975 and at the Inverrary Country Club in Ft. Lauderdale in 1976. The Greater Jacksonville Open laid the groundwork and provided much of the infrastructure for the modern Players Championship, which was first played in Ponte Vedra Beach in 1977.[1]